Joe Root's England set sights on WTC points ahead of Sri Lanka Tests

After two series, England are placed No.4 on the World Test Championship points table and are trailing the top two sides – India and Australia – by a fair margin. But if they clean sweep Sri Lanka, as they did on their tour there in late 2018, they will have bridged that gap significantly and will truly have entered into contention to make the final of the competition at Lord's in 2021.

Another major goal for this England side is winning the Ashes 2021-22 after they failed to take the urn back from Australia at home in 2019. While there's plenty of time left for that series, Root feels it's important that his team utilises every series to improve and 'get some consistency'.

"I think for us building towards that Test Championship final would be a huge achievement," Root told reporters in Colombo on Wednesday, 11 March. "It's something that we're aiming for as a team, and obviously, we're also always judged on how well we do in The Ashes as well, so it's a long process in making sure that we're always trying to peak when we're going up against Australia and travelling over there.

"Long-term a big focus for us is trying to get some consistency and how we want to go about playing our cricket. Similarly with the guys that we're going to be selecting, it's a real opportunity for them to long-term take this team up the rankings, and hopefully play those big moments and big games that really matter."

Sri Lanka have been a formidable Test side at home, especially against sides from outside Asia, but were simply unable to get past England in any of the three Tests in the 2018-19 series despite running them close at times. Dimuth Karunaratne feels the young bowlers in Sri Lanka will make a bigger impact this time around.

"We didn't do well in the last series [against England], and they played really well in these conditions," Karunaratne said. "And compared to other countries [we've faced at home] they were really good at taking on our spinners. But I think Dilruwan is there, and there are a few talented young bowlers as well. And we saw against South Africa and New Zealand in recent tours that they have a really good mindset."

The first of two Tests starts on 19 March in Galle.